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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25935631">The Contract, The Killer Mine, and the One Thing You Can't Stand to Lose</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity'>stateofintegrity</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>MASH (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:40:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,390</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25935631</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Klinger finally gets his section eight.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Contract, The Killer Mine, and the One Thing You Can't Stand to Lose</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This piece is based on an unfilmed MASH script called "The Contract," written by Mac Ness, so many of the lines are borrowed. No infringement is intended; I just want justice done to Klinger's lovely and adorable character... even if I have to rewrite every script myself. ;)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The dirt road with its ceaseless dust  had done for his skirt, his dark brown jacket (modeled on a WAC uniform) and even the blue-grey collared button up beneath; Maxwell Q. Klinger sighed as the jeep swallowed down the last drops of petrol. Tossing the gas can into the backseat with fingers tired out playing surgical nurse to Winchester early into the morning, he turned to look for his companion on this misadventure to the under-supplied 8055th. He called for Winchester - who always tapped him for these trials for some reason - and then went to look. It wasn’t as if he was staying pretty anyway. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But his heart did stall for just a minute at the sight of the kneeling surgeon. If he’d been double-jointed enough, Klinger would have kicked it for its troubles; why waste tender feelings on Winchester? The man frequently felt called to rate Klinger’s lack of intelligence; this week alone he’d had him so low, </span>
  <em>
    <span>twice!, </span>
  </em>
  <span>that Max was sure he could have walked beneath an ant without ducking. “I’m finished, sir,” he said, weary of Korea, of being insulted and servile, of dirt and fear and rotten roads that would doubtless knock his thin body up against Charles’ warmth… all for nothing. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You’d put stitches in if it came to that, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Klinger thought uncharitably, </span>
  <em>
    <span>but you’d probably dress me down for being stupid enough to get hurt and have supplies wasted on me… and there’s nothing I could say to get </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>you</em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span> to stop hurting me. If I tried, you’d just laugh</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just a moment,” said Charles without turning. He actually sounded cheery despite the grim work they’d just left behind. “I’ve found the most marvelous copse of </span>
  <em>
    <span>thymus vulgaris</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it dangerous?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hardly. It’s a spice, Max. Thyme. Your people know about spices.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger frowned. Winchester never missed a chance to point out the fact that the two of them were from very different worlds… and that he considered Klinger’s world - as well as his ancestry, culture, and education - woefully subpar. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Perfect condition,” Winchester said, harvesting the stuff as if they didn’t have work to return to. “Amazing that something like this should flourish in this hellscape.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger hitched a shoulder. “Lotsa fertilizer, probably.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles shot him a chiding look. “Max, do you realize what you can make with this?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A clock?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles made a disappointed sound that relegated him to the likes of Pierce. “I might have known better.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger agreed; why did Winchester bother trying to engage him at all? He wasn’t on his level with his fancy Latin flowers and his education. “Right, Major, but we need to get going, huh?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So eager to get back to KP and sentry duty? Half a moment, Max.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But as he reached for a second clump of plants, the sun flashed on a copper wire stretched across the clearing. Making a flying tackle that never would have worked if Charles had been standing, Max rolled aside with the other man more or less in his arms just as an explosion made Korea resemble what Charles had described it as just a little more. As the detonation died down, it left behind a spray of dirt, rocks, and vegetation, a crater, and two shaken soldiers whose knees knocked together when they stood. Discovering a rip in his jacket, Klinger spared it a disgusted look. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What happened?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had a look for Charles then too; did the man </span>
  <em>
    <span>really think </span>
  </em>
  <span>that his money or his blue blood were a shield against war!? “The North Koreans booby trapped your vulgaris.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The barbarians!” Dazed, he watched Klinger examining his uniform, deciding that the tatters were beyond repair. “Corporal… do you realize what this means?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It means my dress is ruined… and I can’t just get one from supply, you know. Those guys take gender real serious.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. No…” That Atlantic voice stretched the o almost into a u. “That very well might have killed me. You saved my life.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. Guess I did.” Then he frowned thunderously enough to make Charles both take a step back and wonder if Klinger thought as little of him as everyone else at the 4077th seemed to. “Of all people! Why couldn’t it have been a general? They pay with discharges.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well,” Charles began, still feeling shaky, “while I am not a General, I consider myself a gentleman and if there’s anything you want, anything you want me to do… I’ll do it.” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Sure, sure. Buy me off. Cancel the debt because that’s what Winchesters do. But help me stop shaking? Not a chance. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Then Klinger remembered the last poker game in the Swamp. His winnings had been in paper… but it hadn’t all been army scrip. “Well, Major … Charles … there is actually one thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anything.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want your signature on three pieces of paper.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles’ eyes widened and he looked pained, but he nodded and they got back onto the road. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles entered the Swamp at a defeated shuffle. Alerted by  whatever extrasensory skills he possessed that allowed him to needle those who could least endure it, Pierce welcomed Charles with the words, “And speaking of reasons to upchuck, look who’s home.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles received that final word as if it were a blow. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Home… you are moving beyond my reach. You will return to streets that missed your steps … and you will never come home with me. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“No, but I wish I was.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>And you with me</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ attempted a show of camaraderie. “That makes three of us.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles made his way to his cot. He wanted to bury himself in blankets, hide the small, suffering spark of himself away. “Oh, this awful place…” he lamented. </span>
  <em>
    <span>If there had been no tripwire then I wouldn’t be losing you… but if there had been no war, I never would have found you. You’ve taken all my peace. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ playfully looked around, pretending to assess. “If you’d like we’ll hire a decorator.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Klinger must have gotten to him,” quipped Hawk. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Gotten to me… </span>
  </em>
  <span>he tried the words out in the only private place in Korea: in his mind. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Gotten to me… you “got” to me from the first, Maxwell, with those dark eyes and flashing fingers and that clever, clever mouth. I have never wanted to hear a living soul “talk dirty” as they say… but you… you begging me to do unspeakable things to you… I do want that. Just once. To be “gotten” by you, darling, in all your finery, is my most true and painful wish. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Indeed he did,” murmured Charles, ignoring their innuendo-laden snickers. “And just in the knick of time.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>And it is the only way, beloved, that I will ever know your touch - you throwing me down, you covering my body with yours… </span>
  </em>
  <span>“What did I do to deserve this?” It was the most honest question he had ever given voice… and the most painful. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It must’ve been terrible,” Hawk said in his particular made for the movies style of exaggeration. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles didn’t seem to hear. “It’s inhuman, being forced to live out a life inside the world’s biggest garbage dump.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Never settle for second best.” Hawk shook two teasing fingers at him. “Isn’t that the Winchester motto?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And the dirt… the mud…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ shot Hawk a concerned look. “What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am sick and tired of the dirt and the mud.” What he was sick over was impending loss, but he could not crack the safe of his heart and spill out those particular gems before the razor sharp eyes of these men. He could eviscerate himself; he didn’t need other medical professionals to dissect and label his flaws. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ll talk to the cook,” Hawkeye said, trying to get their stick in the mud tent-mate onto drier ground for better conversation. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Every day,” Winchester went on, “I have to clean either dust or mud from my boots, my clothes, my hair… a war starts and the hosting country becomes a mud hole. Without all this muck we are forced to work, eat, and dwell in, this war would be quite clean.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ’s eyes were very wide. </span>
  <em>
    <span>He’s flipped</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he mouthed to Hawk over the other man’s head. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawk was hung up on something else. “How did you get mud in your hair?” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>By being knocked flat on my back by a be-skirted Corporal with a kissable mouth, a five o’clock shadow, and a costume I want to push up around his slender waist</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Charles thought but did not say. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Must not take much,” the man with the ever-elongating mustache volleyed back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles’ sob song went on. “And the unsanitary conditions I’m subjected to… the filth, the rats,” </span>
  <em>
    <span>your hands shaking as we were shelled, dirt falling into open wounds, you playing nurse because we evacuated the women… it was not right that you were made to stay… that I could not put my arm around your shoulder to steady you… to dispel your fears… your eyes so wide and so dark and so helpless… </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“We resent that,” Hawk informed him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would you mind knocking off the self pity til you get back to Boston?” BJ added. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles - and it was in that moment they knew something was up - gave in. “Yes, of course. I shouldn’t think about it. I understand that convicts find it easier if they navigate but one day at a time.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>One terrible day. You will be gone. One hard day. And I will never see you smile for anyone ever again. I will never be permitted to try to make you smile </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>for me</em>
  </b>
  <span>. </span>
  <em>
    <span>What crime did I commit to warrant such a sentence? </span>
  </em>
  <span>“I will try that,” he concluded just as the PA blared to life, announcing the arrival of  ambulances in the compound. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. I cannot believe it!” Charles cried. He would have to see Klinger afraid once more, Klinger - still beautiful somehow - under those harsh OR lights. “Is there no justice?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawkeye clapped him on the shoulder. “I know we ordered some. Probably some screwup at HQ.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the OR, Charles pondered if it was possible to mend the bleed in himself, even as he asked for four-o silk and had to substitute with two-o </span>
  <em>
    <span>on a bowel resection</span>
  </em>
  <span> because </span>
  <em>
    <span>their</span>
  </em>
  <span> two-o silk had gone to the 8055th. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How can I be expected to work when I do not have the right supplies?” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>How can I work at all when he is lost to me? </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Forget being pretty. Just sew fast,” Potter advised.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Forget seeing anything pretty ever again once you vanish from my sight</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Maxwell… </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m operating twice as fast as I used to,” he informed his CO. “I won’t even be able to function in a normal operating theater after this.” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I won’t be able to function </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>here</em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span> without you. I will die because I won’t be able to breathe… you are my good luck charm…</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Drop in pressure, Major,” his anesthetist told him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shake a leg, Winchester,” Potter called. “I don’t want to lose a patient.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bowing to his authority, Winchester took the two-o silk and stitched as small as he could, felt the needle dipping in and out of his heart muscle, knew it wouldn’t - couldn’t- hold. “We would have 4-0 if we hadn’t been chosen as the mercy unit for every other unit that runs low,” Winchester groused. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Charles, if you don’t clam up, I’ll resect your bowels up to your damn ears!” BJ snapped. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Knock it off,” Potter thundered at them both. “Keep the arguments out of the OR.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawk gave his cutie pie smile. “Why? Are the customers complaining?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That evening, Charles surprised his tent-mates by asking,“What are you drinking to?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“To we’re drunk,” Hawk returned. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I meant … never mind.” It wasn’t as though he could admit what he’d be raising his own glass to: the long overdue escape of one Maxwell Q. Klinger. “Pierce, Hunnicutt…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Present.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yo.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“About my attitude, in the OR and before… it was deplorable. There was, of course, a reason.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>I am losing everything. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“But that is no excuse. I would like to say… that is,”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Charles are you apologizing?” BJ sat up so fast his drink sloshed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Certainly not! It is just that I am, ah, sorry.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A sorrier soul I have yet to see,” Hawk jested, forgiving him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles cocked his head at the still. “Ah, could I have one of those?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You sure? Thought your tastes ran more refined.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles wondered what the other man would think if he knew that the only reason he was willing to let this poison (its skull-and-bones warning label clearly misplaced) past his lips was that it would drown his wish to put his hands on Klinger’s hips, hold him down, and kiss him breathless. How refined was that? “No, really. I would like to join you. Do you have some Vermouth to go with it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The Vermouth is already in it - added by a perfume spritzer I won from Klinger, may his sequins never fall off - pre-mixed for post-post-op… or post-mortem.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Or post boredom,” BJ added. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles forced down a swallow. Behind his eyes, errant sequins flashed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So,” Hawk leaned in, “what’s this reason that’s got your stethoscope in a knot?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh?” He surfaced from the gin, the pain. “Oh yes. Yes. Something happened to me yesterday… something that has caused me to think…” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you get hit on the head?” the ever cheeky Pierce asked. “Or just plain hit on?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before Charles could scold him for his idiocy, there was a knock at the door and a flash of brass buttons as Klinger appeared in his uniform - his </span>
  <em>
    <span>gender appropriate uniform</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Charles’ mouth went drier than Pierce’s martini. “Can I come in, sirs?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Klinger,” Charles said weakly. “Of course.” The suffering surgeon would have preferred Mephistopheles; he would have signed over his soul for ten eternities if it kept Klinger under his gaze… and didn’t that just go to show how much he didn’t deserve the man? </span>
  <em>
    <span>I want you to be happy, Maxwell. But must it be happy in Toledo? Could I not give you a home in my arms? </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The Corporal swept in, a daisy smiling, all friendliness, behind his ear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you dressed up for?” Hawk asked him, eyes raking stem to stern… which made </span>
  <em>
    <span>Charles </span>
  </em>
  <span>very stern indeed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A special occasion.” He winked one dark eye. “A secret between me… and the Major.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawkeye sat back, beaming, and spread his hands, laughing. “Oh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Emerson Winchester II announce the engagement of their son Charles to Max Klinger. Wedding to take place in the minefield next week and the bride will wear off black.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger stomped on his toes. “Hey! I’m entitled to white!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles moaned quietly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let’s drink to the happy couple!” Beej declared. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger’s smile only grew as he passed a sheaf of papers to the Major. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just sign on the dotted line, sir.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles ran his eyes over the words. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Can one’s </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>very eyes </em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span>get paper cuts? You are destroying me, Max. I want to sign </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>our marriage certificate, </em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span>not your discharge! </span>
  </em>
  <span>But he did, fingers aching.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s doing it,” BJ reported. “Charles being civil?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The Major’s doing me a favor. A real swell favor.” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The Major, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Charles thought, wanting to stain the papers with his tears, </span>
  <em>
    <span>wants to </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>do you</em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span>, sweetling. </span>
  </em>
  <span>What he said, voice arch as ever (but brittle underneath as a castle made of fired sugar) was, “I trust this will settle the matter?” </span>
  <em>
    <span>I would settle all I have on you, beloved. My home. My wealth. My prestige. My stocks, bonds, and my worthless, much too shallow heart. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, sir. With interest even.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s going on?” asked BJ. He was practically an empath; he could feel the pain radiating off of Charles- black and heavy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re settling up,” said Klinger, happy as Christmas morning with fresh snow. “I saved the Major’s life yesterday. Now he’s saving mine.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why!?” Hawk demanded. “You made a Major mistake.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles glared. “The Corporal is not joking, gentlemen. He pushed me clear just before a mine went off.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really?” Hawk gaped. No wonder Charles had been prickly; a close brush with death would do that to a man - even a Beacon Hill blueblood like Charlie boy. “On the level?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger nodded. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, Charles,” said BJ, “I think we’re both sorry for the way he treated you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles held in a whimper. Klinger could treat him however he wanted. He longed, not to lay his coat in puddles, but to </span>
  <em>
    <span>lay in the puddles</span>
  </em>
  <span> to preserve the Corporal’s pretty shoes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We get it.” Pierce held his glass up in a toast. “Why you were so upset.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles wished they were gone. He wanted to kneel down and kiss Klinger’s ankle, to bite his thigh through the dress uniform and draw blood. “I, ah, failed to keep my composure, it must be said. But I am repaying my debt to the,” </span>
  <em>
    <span>pretty-pretty-so-pretty, </span>
  </em>
  <span>“Corporal.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Gee, Klinger,” Hawkeye made eyes at him. “That kinda heroism must be worth… what? At least 50 cents? What’s he giving you?” He gave a dirty martini wink. “A ‘nose’ job?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hearing the word nose stand in for other things he </span>
  <em>
    <span>happily </span>
  </em>
  <span>would have given over and over and over, Charles slugged back another drink and ignored the aftertaste of autumn ripe socks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger shoved the Captain. “Are you kidding? The Major’s pure class.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ winked too - at </span>
  <em>
    <span>Charles</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “I saved a dog once. All </span>
  <em>
    <span>it</span>
  </em>
  <span> licked was my hand.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles closed his eyes, savored, for four entire seconds, the idea of his tongue buried in Klinger’s cotton candy-soft mouth, </span>
  <em>
    <span>My tongue wrapped around… </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you blame it?” Hawk couldn’t resist getting in. “It didn’t know where your face had been!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Envying him, God how he envied the man, Charles said, “Someday, Pierce, with extensive shock therapy,” </span>
  <em>
    <span>and </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>I know </em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span>shock therapy, </span>
  </em>
  <span>“you may become semi-sane.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ shook his head - either disagreeing or voting against. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles passed the papers over Klinger, wishing he could pass him a diamond ring with them. “Here you are,” </span>
  <em>
    <span>love. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you, sir. You won’t regret it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I do. I will. Every day for the rest of my life. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“We are even?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“With interest,” Klinger said once more, to an aching man whose interest he’d much more than piqued. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawk gave Klinger an assessing look. “What do you mean, even? It looks like you’ve got half of Winchester’s stock portfolio. All you gave him was his crummy life. What’ve you got there, career schemer?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My ticket home. He signed my discharge papers.” He pinched Winchester’s cheek. “The sweetie.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles turned his face from all of them, eyes bright with pure pain. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He can’t send you home!” BJ protested. “You need four signatures for that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Three,” Klinger corrected. “New year, new rules.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawkeye laughed, shook his head. “It’s Charles Emerson Winchester the </span>
  <em>
    <span>third</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Klinger. He’s not three people, even if he does have the ego for it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, but you sirs are. Remember the poker game a few months back? The big one? Major Freedman cane down for it?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawk shuffled a drunken hazy set of memories around. “I tried to bet my fillings, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger beamed. “That one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ remembered. “You won big that night.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure did. And in the last hand, what did you two sirs bet?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawkeye remembered. “Oh.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sidney had tried to talk them out of it, had called it cruel, had even joked that if he wanted a discharge he could easily sign himself out so their names had no place in the pot… </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You sure you don’t want my fillings?” the Captain bargained. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nope. I’ve got packing to do. I want to be ready to spring this on the Colonel first thing.” He saluted his soon to be ex-comrades. “I’m off.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles shot him a longing look. “How right you are.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger turned back, missing the agony on his proud face. “Don’t tell anybody, huh sirs? I want to do it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I intend to forget the entire thing,” Charles informed him. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Even if I must drink myself blind to do so. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger practically danced off. The Swamp Rats rounded on their bunkmate and friend. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What were you thinking!?!” Hawkeye demanded. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles cried without letting a single tear show. “What could I do?” </span>
  <em>
    <span>What is that trite and horrible saying? If you love something send it home to Toledo? </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“How about suicide?” Hunnicutt asked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cretin,” Charles shot back, beginning to make tea.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ and Hawk put their heads together. There was something odd here. Something wrong. “Potter’s going to be surprised,” BJ said at last. “Klinger leaving us on a section 8…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pierce offered a new and sinister suggestion: “Or Charles getting sent home in eight sections?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At 1 AM that fateful night, Charles Emerson Winchester III crossed the compound and threw open the door to Max’s tent. “I insist that you allow me to give you a proper goodbye,” he said without preamble. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger was layering pretty, frilly things with tissue paper. “There, you said it,” he joked. “Best of luck to ya, Major.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Charles’ lovely, long-fingered hands anchored on his hips and spun him. “Hey!” Klinger protested. “What are you doing?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles drew the slighter man tight against him. “What does it matter, Max? In a mere forty hours, you will be in your precious Toledo, gone, forever from my sight. Let me have this.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Max pushed back, palms flat against his broad chest. “I’m not that kind of girl, Major.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Make an exception!” Charles cried, musical voice full to the brim with love and with pain. “You won’t be here tomorrow!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right!” Klinger shouted back. “And I’m not getting pawed over by a drunken officer tonight! Your signature on those papers didn’t get you </span>
  <em>
    <span>me</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Major.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles stepped back, shocked. “I am not drunk,” he swore. “And you may call the MPs afterward if you wish it, Max. Let them arrest me, prosecute me, imprison me. I promise you that I </span>
  <em>
    <span>will not care</span>
  </em>
  <span>. But I will not be kept from you at this thirteenth hour.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m saying no.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because you don’t even like me! And my first time isn’t gonna be over some unresolved issues of yours about guys in dresses. You think you’re the first officer that wanted to pretend I’m his little lady? Get out of here, Major.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not have issues:</span>
  <em>
    <span> I am in love with you</span>
  </em>
  <span>. I do not wish to pretend you are anything but what you wish to be. I accept you, Max. </span>
  <em>
    <span>All</span>
  </em>
  <span> of you. Every flounce and frill. Every time you choose to wear fatigues. Every flower behind your ear... I’m sorry did you say </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘first</span>
  </em>
  <span>?’”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I did.” Then he sneered, an unlovely look for a lovely face. “You’re in love with me? What is this? The Swampers got tired of pulling pranks on each other so now I’m in the mix? Big finish before I ship out?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No! I am serious, Maxwell!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Uh-huh.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please allow me the opportunity to prove it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger crossed his arms. “You aren’t proving anything in my bed.” The look he saw in Charles’ eyes then told him that the bed was a formality. The wall would do as well… or the floor. “Why?” He hadn’t meant to speak, to ask. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Because I am losing you under nearly the most painful circumstances possible</span>
  </em>
  <span> - I signed you away for god’s sake! - so I would like you to go with the truth in your pocket at least.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Those impossible eyes </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurt</span>
  </em>
  <span>. And he was out of here anyway. “Go ahead. Prove it, Major.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hope zinged through him like a drug. Then he crashed back to Earth. “I, ah, I’ll need your help.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger rolled his eyes. “Figures. With what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The phone. I have a witness of sorts.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger had signed discharge papers; he didn’t care about regulations tonight. He phoned Boston. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles spoke a few words of greeting and said who was at his side. Klinger listened with an absolute absence of trust. Then the phone was handed over. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Corporal Maxwell K-klinger?” a very happy voice asked into his ear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes ma’am,” his voice was almost a whisper. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“S-so p-pleased to make your acquaintance, d-darling. Am I correct in assuming that t-this call r-results from s-something stupid my i-idiot brother has done? He’s quite m-mad for you, you know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could not speak. Did not believe. “Ma’am?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I k-know you have no reason to b-believe me, Corporal, but I p-promise that I n-never lie for Charles. Whatever he h-has done, he did it, m-most probably b-because love does not come easily to h-him. No p-practice, you see?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s sending me home,” Max was still whispering. “To Toledo.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, w-when Toledo has l-lost her charms, you must come s-stay with me in Boston. A p-picture of you in h-his bed will no d-doubt get Charles through the rest of the war.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blushing, Klinger promised he would travel to see her (she insisted) and that he would let her use Charles’ money to make the arrangements. It was at that moment that Charles gave him a questioning look. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Believe me now? </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Max might have wished to lie, but he just nodded. Taking back the phone, Charles gave his love to his sister and promised Max would get in touch as soon as his pretty shoes touched down on American soil. Then the phone was replaced and they stared at each other across the office. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“One night,” the Major bargained. “One night with someone who loves you. Allow me to be your first. I swear to you that you shall be my last.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Post Op was rarely a pleasant place for the soon-to-be-sprung Maxwell Q. Klinger, but Father Mulcahy had clued him in to a resident he’d want to meet. He found the young man bandaged and perusing a novel called </span>
  <em>
    <span>Quincey Penn – in Danger! </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And I’m out of danger now. Safe! Free! … at least I think so.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Smothering thoughts that were too new to tangle with, he greeted the soldier. “Ronny? Ronny Thatcher? Port Lake Erie?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thatcher brightened right up. “Yeah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Max extended a hand, pushing back against thoughts of the hand that had been held out to him the night before… and what had been in it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Max Klinger. Father Mulcahy told me you were here. I’m from Toledo, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And going home</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Why didn’t that thought feel the way it should? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They tried to shake and engaged in a laughing sort of dance between the book that Thatcher forgot to sit down and his bandaged shoulder. “Nice to meet you,” Thatcher said at last.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger took the empty bed beside him. It hadn’t been a bed last night, but his cot… and then the floor when the cot’s dimensions had proved too narrow to allow for the particular forms of self-expression in which Charles had wished to indulge. Max felt his bones become hot honey at the memory alone and fisted his hand in the sheets. The sheets called back memories too… that old dream of himself on the operating table, not a gal and not a guy - a medical curiosity cut up and open as a cautionary tale… He slammed the door on those old thoughts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I should’ve known right off. You got that Toledo look. Born there?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. Lived there all my life ‘til this bum rap.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Me too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Survived eighteen years in the Toledo streets just to end up like this.” He glared at the bandages and Klinger knew that the plaster and gauze were acting as representatives for the Draft Board, the North Koreans, the President and all the rest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know what you mean,” he said. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How long have you been here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once, he would have known to the hour, but his mind heard the question and wondered, instead, just how long he’d been in Charles’ arms. Hours. But not long enough… Definitely not long enough for how he felt now. “Forever,” he murmured, the word nicking his tongue like a blade. “But I just got my discharge papers… and I’m going back. Can’t wait.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I signed you away,” Charles had said. And last night, Klinger was almost certain that the man had signed his name into his skin, had wept when he was inside of him. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And now I don’t know who I am anymore. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the Swamp in the dismal morning light, Charles reheated the tea he’d made the night before. It was over-strong with being over-steeped… but that was kind of perfect for the gin, really. Hawk watched him mix the two with something like fear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did have to pay him back,” Charles insisted. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wouldn’t he have settled for your firstborn?” Hawk jested. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Charles Emerson Winchester III will be the last of the line, Pierce. Ask my father. He’s always known it. Well, since I was nine. He regrets, to this day, that he gave the name to me and not to my brother who perished young. Better a dead and beloved son than a live and endlessly flawed disappointment. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is not my fault alone, gentlemen,” he reminded his tent-mates, drinking deep because the influx of liquid would, he hoped, act as an incoming wave and knock back his tears. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh no?” Beej was not prepared, at this early hour, to be generous to the sorrow-drowning surgeon. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You two signed, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Practically poetry,” Hawk chirped. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We were forced to!” BJ declared. “It was either sign or…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lose the game,” Hawk finished for him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But you lost anyway,” Charles reminded them. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And I am to lose, for good, that which I could not, for the price of my heart, keep or win. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He hadn’t really believed it would work. A man like him? Winchester was so accustomed to being unloved (perhaps unlovable for all he knew) that he hadn’t considered, in propositioning Max, how little experience he had to bring to the table. How could someone like him ever do enough to win someone as perfect as the now ex-Corporal? </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I did my best,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Charles cried to some internal jury.</span>
  <em>
    <span> I love him more than anything… I thought he would see that. Or feel it. I… I tried to tell him. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Max had been asleep by then and he had been speaking into his hair, the black strands almost blue in the moonlight that came in through the tent flap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nobody’s perfect,” Hawk replied.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Certainly not you,” Charles replied, wistfully thinking of someone who was close… and about to be so very far away. Would Max answer if he wrote? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>No. He would want to forget Korea and pain and death… and the man who hadn’t been good enough or lovely enough for him, the man he’d pitied with the gift of his body for a time. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I made every other mistake over you, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Charles thought. </span>
  <em>
    <span>How right that I made my biggest one on the occasion of your departure! </span>
  </em>
  <span>He thought of the smell of crushed thyme on his fingers. Maybe he would pick more. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There had to be more mines out there. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thatcher had needed a rest after their introduction, but Klinger spent lunch with him, too, hoping this other son of Toledo might help him recapture all that his city meant… and hoping (on a level he didn’t admit even to himself) to avoid Charles. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sighed, tried for rapture. “Ah, to be part of the population again! Watching the ships dock… sitting in the Trianon and listening,”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thatcher interrupted with a quick head-shake. “They tore it down.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The Trianon. They tore it down. It’s a bank now I think.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not fair!” He’d debuted some of his best dresses there. “I can’t spend my Saturday nights in a vault… gee… Well, I guess there’s always Al’s pool hall.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nope.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They tore it down, too!?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It tore itself down,” Thatcher corrected him. “Gas leak. Took out the whole block.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Even the deli?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thatcher nodded, hating to stick a pin in his hopes. “Yeah. It was at night, at least, so nobody got hurt… unless you count the looters.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Looters?” Klinger thought the man was having him on at first. “You’re kidding, right? That was a class neighborhood!”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Well, not class like you’d think of it, Major. But safe, Cozy. People smiled atcha. Said hello. Girls in the flower district would wave and if you got sick and weren’t around, people would ask after ya. People took care of each other… like they do here. Even a guy in a dress. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hate telling you this, with you getting ready to go home and everything, but it ain’t anymore, Max. Most of the merchants left last year. It got pretty rough. I heard protection money’ll cost you less than replacing your windows all the time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger was already mourning the pool hall – and especially the deli, but there had to be something good left, right? Why was he over here fighting if not? “The dime store?” he tried, hoping. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Gone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Molly’s candy and bakery?” Molly had a wedding cake in the front window most mornings to show off her stuff; if you came by in the evening she sold sweet hunks of it for 3 cents. He didn’t mean to think it, he really didn’t, but Klinger imagined lifting one of those wedges, the icing so upscale it wouldn’t dare melt on your fingers, to the mouth that had done so many things… things he hadn’t even known you could do, some of them, to him last night. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The Hotel Redmont? The tavern?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“All gone,” Thatcher told him, looking like he wanted to give him a punch in the arm to shore him up. “Nothing left but pawn shops, dollar a week rooms, and,” he lowered his voice – he was a good Toledo boy after all, “business girls.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger shook his head as if he’d received a blow. “That’s not right… that’s not my city… that’s… that’s not what I wanna go back to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>What I wanna go back to is last night, Major… and fix it. All of it. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lunch in the Swamp that day consisted of gin, which wasn’t anything new.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gin in a teacup a la Charles, though? That was a novelty that kept Hawkeye and BJ hanging around – partly to see how the disaster developed and partly out of concern for their friend. Well, and partly because they didn’t want Charles to drain the still until they’d won a drunken promise from him that he would buy the fixings for their next batch. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Given up on tea, Chuckles?” Hawk said, peering into his cup. “Let me guess, you didn’t like what the </span>
  <em>
    <span>leaves</span>
  </em>
  <span> had to say about you either?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought I would stick with the sugar,” Charles volleyed back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hunnicutt looked up from a letter he’d only read 276 times. “You’ll get a cavity in your liver.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This stuff grows on you,” said the Major.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like vintage fungus,” Hawk seconded. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean, prior to this… what are we calling it? Police battle?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Police action,” BJ corrected, the words “you drunken buffoon” not spoken, but somehow audible. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That thing,” Charles agreed. “Before it, I had only the best champagne and wine… though not at the same time. And even they would not be enough for this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawkeye and BJ shared a look. They’d known there was a </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span>. But what was it?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you know, Hawkeye, BJ,”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This, too, was alarming. An informal Charles was typically a wheedling Charles, but wheedling took wits and Charles’ were too gin-soaked to engage. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not well, but we’re hoping to meet them on New Year’s Eve,” BJ chimed in. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Under a big bridge,” Hawk finished for him. “Dancing after we go home.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles' eyes changed, were devoid of everything but pain. “My home is on Beacon Hill… where I once told Klinger he would not be allowed to walk.” Each word seemed to tiptoe out on stilts, wobble, and flatten out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is about </span>
  <em>
    <span>Klinger</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Hawk asked, surprised. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.” He drained the tea cup, uncertain if the drink was bitter or if he was just tasting his tears. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ was on high alert and seemed to want to take the fragile cup away from those huge hands. “What about Klinger?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I told him that… awful, haughty thing because I was too terrified to say that I wished to </span>
  <em>
    <span>carry him</span>
  </em>
  <span> over the threshold of the place… and now I have signed him out of my life forever.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re drinking to get through Klinger leaving</span>
  </em>
  <span>!?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So ‘twould seem.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it working?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will update you as events warrant.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you, I don’t know, try to get him to stay?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I, ah, yes. It wasn’t enough.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>I wasn’t enough.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I never have been</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
  <em>
    <span>In this, at last and least, father mine, you are proven right. I am unwanted even by my heart’s other half. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>At that moment, a miserable looking Maxwell Q. Klinger came, without knocking, through the Swamp door. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked at Charles, read the pain in him, knew why it was there. “Are you drunk, Major?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We won’t know until the autopsy,” Hawk clowned. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles stood to stagger to his cot, renewing his drink along the way. There wasn’t enough gin in the country to fortify him for the sight of his beloved, but it was the only shield he had. “My corpse would sue for malpractice,” Charles returned. “You’re little steadier than I.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ watched him fill the tea cup. “You’re going to have more to drink?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Impossible to have less, no?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawkeye turned to the worried looking Corporal. “You get your packing done?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. I’m not going.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What? I thought you and Chuckles had a deal!"<br/>
</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger smiled then and all three men suddenly realized how dressed up he was in a buttercup and bridal white skirt. He crossed the tent and sat, not on Charles’ cot - but on his </span>
  <em>
    <span>lap</span>
  </em>
  <span>, skirts spilling over both of them. Charles dropped his teacup to clasp his waist without thinking. Hawk always said it was the spilled gin that cut down on the dust. Looking into those drunken, helpless eyes, Klinger spoke gently. “Don’t worry, sir. You paid me back. You gave me something way better than a discharge.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As he kissed the taste of homemade gin right off of his lips, Hawkeye and BJ clapped and cheered. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles looked up, trembling, wondering, wanting to ask how this was possible but terrified to break the spell. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So what’s the angle, Klinger?” Hawk asked then. “Trading Toledo in for a man who can hold his secrets way better than his liquor?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger squeezed the Major’s thigh. “He shoulda told me, yeah. But, actually, I never really thought about it before last night, but, uh, I don’t really have anything to go home to.” He looked down and Charles drew him against his chest. Even intoxicated, the depths of his love was evident and his tentmates wondered how they possibly could have missed it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I got divorced,” Klinger went on. “My friends moved or got drafted or just got on with their lives. I guess what I’m trying to say is this is my family now. Maybe we’ve had some bad times. And with the war, we might be in for more of ‘em, but what family doesn’t have bad times?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What about your real family?” BJ asked. “Your mom?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If I go home in dresses, they’ll disown me. And if I get out on a psycho, who’s gonna want me around? Psychiatrists? I won’t be able to find work.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not much of a life,” Hawk agreed, watching, with honest admiration, the way Charles slowly stroked the Corporal’s back as he gave voice to these harsh truths for the first time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m staying,” Klinger said - and everyone in the Swamp knew who he was talking to. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re sure?” Charles asked then.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger nodded, smiled, destroyed the discharge papers he’d worked so hard and long to gain and cast them up like confetti. Bits of them stuck in their hair and would flutter down later when they kissed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What about your trousseau?” Hawk asked, mostly to stop the lovebirds from making out in front of them (Charles would be so embarrassed later).</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger’s eyes shined. “Oh, I’m keeping it.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?” asked Beej. “You won’t need it if you’re staying.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You could be almost normal,” Hawk added. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh no,” Klinger said, getting to his feet and dragging Charles with him, “if I have to start acting sane around here, I really </span>
  <em>
    <span>will</span>
  </em>
  <span> go crazy. Besides, I had a lotta fun trying for my first section eight. I think this time around’s gonna be even better. Come on, Major.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They exited to Hawk humming a bridal march and casting confetti after them, but neither man noticed. Back in Max’s tent, Charles accepted having strong coffee poured into him as he’d endured an invigoratingly icy shower (with appreciative observer), but he didn’t let go of the Corporal’s hand. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You could have told them the truth, darling. They’re your friends and would support you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The being in between thing, you mean? I barely have words for it for myself. You know and you accept me - that’s good enough.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>During their one night together, Max had quietly confessed his feelings about his inability to fit either gender perfectly as he lay in Charles’ arms. He hadn’t meant to say it, but he’d been touched by the man’s gentleness, the way he talked about his beauty. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You aren’t alone, Max. When we get back to the States I will show you. Many cultures believe in a third gender.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s enough that you believe in me, Major. That you’ll let me be… well, whatever I need to be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I most certainly will. And I will love you always.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will Honoria, too? Is she going to be upset that I’m not going back?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Honoria will adore you. And I believe she will be very happy for us both. Besides, this will give her time to plan a wedding.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger laughed and buried his face in his neck. Overnight, he’d gone from being a scared kid in a war zone to a fiancé, a soon-to-be brother, and a truer version of himself. “You really will take me home, Major? To Boston?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Darling, I will sign ten contracts to that effect if you need them. And while I would rather spend the night kissing you, I do wish you to feel safe and convinced.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger’s eyes shined. “You’re a pretty good kisser, Major. You can convince me that way if you want.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So, Charles made his intentions clear with the warm and generous motions of his mouth, kissing him so thoroughly that Klinger joked with him about the fine print of the very physical contract he was creating on his skin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just being thorough, my love. I insist that you be well provided for.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then get up here and provide for me, Major.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They laughed together as they tangled their bodies, making a truth far more enduring than any legal document. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*** </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next day dawned beautiful and the staff of the 4077th stepped into the cool morning and drank it in. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I-corps says it’ll be a slow one for wounded,” Potter said by way of greeting to his surgical staff. “A taste of peace at the 4077 for a change.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles appeared, happy though hungover, even going so far as to accept Pierce’s hug. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Heard you’re keeping me from breaking in a new clerk, Winchester,” Potter said with laughing eyes. “I sure do appreciate it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sir, I assure you that, gin aside - forever! - it was very much my pleasure.” He moaned as the act of speaking threatened to open fine rifts in his aching skull. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where is your prettier half?” BJ asked just as Klinger appeared in a tarlatan ballet skirt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Feeling festive?” Hawk asked, laughing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Potter shook his head and lit a cigar. “Didn’t know there was a tu-tu in your collection, my girl.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger smiled at the pronoun; he was accepted here, really and truly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think it’s a too-little,” BJ offered. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles placed a possessive hand at the small of Klinger’s back. “Nonsense, gentlemen. This is just the thing for an, ah, night at the operate, wouldn’t you say?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, it’s not going to work,” Potter said, hustling them all toward the chow line. “You might as well give up, Klinger.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not until I get out, sir!” Klinger declared. Then, squeezing Charles’ hand, he added, just for him, “And not then, either!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>End! </span>
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